Employees dreaded getting into an elevator with Steve Jobs. As soon as the doors closed, he would start grilling them about what they were working on, and they knew they’d better have a good story. Some of those encounters have become legendary. Most notably, an anonymous woman who, according to Ed Niehaus, inadvertently stepped into an elevator with Jobs and heard, just a few floors later, “We are not going to need you.”

Could the key to increasing “employee engagement” be reducing “employee estrangement”?

As a CEO Coach to CEOs and Executive Teams, how to craft powerful apologies is one of the simple leadership skills I teach top leaders.

If you set out today to build a smartphone, you wouldn’t copy the original iPhone version 1.0 from 2007, would you? Why, then, do so many leaders try to emulate the Steve Jobs version 1.0 that was popularized in the Walter Isaacson's bestselling biography?

What if the Steve Jobs who fired people in elevators wasn't the one who created the iPhone? 

Click to view this article as it was originally published on the international publication quartz.com 

Steve Jobs has been called the greatest businessman the world has ever seen and the best CEO of this generation.

But he’s also the same man who would allegedly yell at people for 30 minutes straight, cut in front of his employees at lunchtime, berate hospitality and restaurant staff, park in handicapped spaces, said all HR personnel have a “mediocre mentality,” and told his staff how much they “sucked.”

A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that CEOs who are not married make more aggressive and volatile choices as leaders than their married peers do. The research shows that investing in firms led by an unwed CEO is a riskier investment than investing in firms with a married CEO.

However, I believe that the quality of a leader’s marriage should also be closely considered by investors

Ever wondered what makes a good boss?

A new study performed by AttaCoin has found that 47 percent of employees say that they do not feel appreciated by their employer. And only 41 percent of employees felt that their managers effectively reward staff members who do a stellar job.

Revealing the highest-paid CEOs in the country. CEO of Charter Communications, Thomas Rutledge, tops the list, earning $98M a year. (The average Charter employee makes $40,000 annually.) Many people are left wondering: Are CEOs being paid too much?

When business partnerships flounder, companies can take a major hit. A CEO’s relationship with his business partners and his executive staff such as his second-in-command set the tone for his company’s success. 

A recent study published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior found that CEOs who ask for feedback on their management style and effectiveness are more likely to have confident team members and an improved bottom line.

“Look man, you can listen to Jimi but you can't hear him. There's a difference man. Just because you're listening to him doesn't mean you're hearing him.” ~ Wesley Snipes, “White Men Can’t Jump”

Listening. We do it every day. It’s innate. Listening isn’t something we have to think about… it’s something we just… do. Right?

Wrong

Listening is one of the most valuable skills anyone can possess. If you want to excel as a leader, the ability to listen well is essential. Unfortunately, listening is also an easy (and common) skill to take for granted.